Triple disappointment

Press, 10 April 1978, Page 1

Triple disappointment

"I don’t know what is worst: losing the basketball, missing seeing it, or having no office.” That was how Mr Allan Barrett, secretary of the New Zealand Basketball Federation, described his reaction to Saturday evening’s fire in Manchester Street. Mr Barrett was called away from the AustraliaNew Zealand basketball test to be told that his offices were on fire.

He missed the test, which Australia won, and is now looking for new offices. Six rooms on the first floor of the building housed the records of the basketball federation, the Basketball Referees’ Association, and the New Zealand Hockey Association, of which Mr Barrett is also secretary; the New Zealand Games Organising Committee; and the 1974 Commonwealth Games

Organising Committee. The fire destroyed the reception area and one other room, said Mr Barrett. “My own room is damp and charred, and the others are saturated; and the ceiling has collapsed in a couple of places.” The finanical records of the basketball federation were destroyed and five large scrapbooks of newspaper clippings covering the 1974 Commonwealth Games were lost.

Flags used at the Com- ! monwealth Games were charred and “unsalvageable,” he said, Mr Barrett took delivery ■ of about 6000 basketball rule books on Friday, but 1 carried only four cartons upstairs. These were f burned, but the rest, left i downstairs, were waters damaged. “It could have been a damned sight worse,” he i said. “We could have lost everything.”